Shooting plan

I have gotten permission for a camera that i wanted to use today its my aunts one and it has things like night vision on it which i need to have in my film, if this camera doesnt work out i have a back up camera to use wich will be the one that matt and rathe are using.

As for the times that i will be filming my film i dont have a specific date as i will have to use the camera after christmas for obvious reasons why. As for the dates i will be getting my extra zombie actors any day that i can as i dont need to have them there all the time what i really need is my main survivors. Also with the holidays comming up i will be working quite a lot and i have a different rota every week so i will need to fit it in with that.

I will shoot it in different bits and locations on different days and try to get as much as possible done every day hopefully it should take only a few days to complete the filming of the trailer.

Pictures to further explain my ideas

Storyline

I havent really got a story line for my film as its done with hand camera style i can just film short little scenes then edit them into my trailer also i dont want to give a lot away in m,y trailer as this is a typical convention in zombie film trailers. I thought of some idead that there could be a disease that had broke out and infected people and turned them into zombies which is the more conventional idea for a zombie film and i thought that i would film some people with petri dishes in the william parker science lab with white coats on etc. I didnt think that this would work as it wouldbnt be filmed really in the hand camera style that i would like to use it would be very mis matched in my trailer.

There are some other scenes that i would like to do with jus surviviors running around and finding things the main scene that i would like to do is have them enter or like break into a house which is pitch black and them scramblibng around for match to see something then i will use my little brother who will be dressed up as a zombie to growl and to start attacking them.

Actors

In my film i have decided to have a few main actors as the 'survivors' of the film i havent decided on the people who will play them as of yet i think i will use people who i see often so that i wont be let down all of the time and i think i will use myself as its done in the hand camera style so i will be able to film and be in it. As for my zombies i will use any one that is willing to be in my film i will most likely use people in my family as i would like to have an age range in my film.

The survivors will be dressed in tattered clothing and will look generally unkept and untidy. As for the zombies i will be using make up on them and have tjhem blood splattered and in tattered clothing also. here is the sort of make up style that i would like to achieve for my zombies. it should be very realistic to do as it only uses blacks, greys and blues.

Locations for my film

For my film i will be using all locations in Hastings such as the old town i would like to use these locations at night and most likely the small passages in the old town so that the places would look abandoned and selcuded and i could have my zombies running round without the public getting in the way.

I would also like to use diffrent houses but for that i will use my own house and differnt members of my family and hopefully adjust it to what i would like to use it for.

Here is a picture that i found that is simular to a scene that i would to do in my trailer i would like to have the survivors running then the camera to show a bank or hill with no one on it then suddenly a whole group of zombies that have appeared then to chase after the humans. I would like to do simular running scenes where i would just use woodland areas and possilby the school site other than that i will just use streets and day to day places.

28 Days Later Trailer

With the 28 days later trailer i like how boyle has used the black background and the flashing text to show a passing of time and what has happend i think this technique is effective as we are informed to what is going on with the film without it going on for ages its very straight to the point. In this trailer also i think a technique i could use is not actually seeing the infected but show what they are capable of for example in the trailer when the man wakes up and literally everything is destroyed i think it could be an interesting way for showing the destruction also a way to show a lot of time has passed.

Colin Trailer

Here is the trailer for colin the whole film was made with only £45 at the beging of the trailer it uses quick jump cut shots which gives makes the shots look distorted and in motion. I could use this to show and suggest motion throughout my trailer also to imply that something is after my centeral characters but if i would want to create something that is impossible on my budget i could use this technique instead. The tense background music in colin also makes it much more tense and creates the mood and atmosphere for the film. The shots that have been used are very short bits of the film and tend to show either the zombies or humans reactions to what is happening to them, most of them are very simple and are realistic to achieve for me to do in my film.

Shaun Of The Dead Trailer

For my trailer i liked the technique that is used at the begining of this trailer i liked how it flicked between interfearance and the news reporters talking about whats going on with the zombies. I could do this by filming some one like a news reporter then playing it back onto a tevevision. I like also when it jump cuts between different segments of the film to show you whats been going on this i could use also. The make up that is used is quite simplistic except from the obvious like with half of an arm and things like that i can re-create the make up just by using face paints and fake blood which would look quite effective.

Changed idea

I have decided to work on my own as me and emma have had very different ideas. I have brainstormed different ideas that i wanted to do and both of them follow the horror genre. Keeping in mind that i just looked at halloween i wanted to do a whole film in Carpenter's style when the camera is the killer. So in this idea my cast would be acting around and to the camera. Even though i thought that this would be an effective idea i thought that it would be quite difficult to do as the audience might not follow with the idea of the camera representing the killer and i think it might get a bit repetive.

I have decided to use an idea that i wanted to do previously i want to do a hand held camera film in the style of films such as Blair witch project, cloverfield and paranormal activity. My film is going to be a zombie film filmed in the hand held camera style, i need to come up with a story line that can run through the film but in my trailer it will be filled with scenes of people getting chased and tense scenes. I will need to look at zombie make up and effects wich my dad can help me with as he used to do some special effects make up when he was younger. For my cast i will have the same few survivors but as for the zombies i wont need to have the same cast the whole time. Locations that i will use will be around hastings and in places like streets, houses and secluded places.

Halloween

I think i would like to use some of the camera shots and techniques that are used in the halloween trailer i like the use of the camera 'being the killer' and that we don't know what they actually look like i think that this is very effective as we create are own assumption to what the killer would look like. I also think that the use of the mask, that we only can see through the eye holes is very effective as it gives us a limited view of the scene and the actress and the sound effects actually make the scene. If i decided to use this technique in my trailer it would be easy to film as it uses fairly straightforward camera shots and (as halloween was made on a small budget) Iwouldnt have to have an actor to be the killer as you would not see him and i would be relying mainly on my sound effects and actors.

changed idea 2

Me and Emma have decided to change our idea again as we thought that our previous idea wouldnt be very realistic to do. We liked our original idea of doing the horror genre as the convetions of a horror film are very stereotypical and we have a lot more ideas that we can use not only with filming, but with the music and make up. Me and Emma both do art so we would like to incorporate our art into this by doing make up on ourselves and other actors. We wanted to do a zombie horror film but in the hand cam sort of style that is used in The Blair with project. We have discussed between us the locations that we would like to have for our trailer we thought about burnt down and abandoned buildings creepy locations. We are hoping next to do test make up for our film, decided on locations and to story board it.

What we are going to do in half term

In half term me and Emma have decided to go and look at locations that we could use to film our film in and how to get there. We are looking for a woods, a creepy locations such as a burnt building ( the pier) and other things simular to that. Also we are not exactly sure what the story line is of our film yet so while we are filming footage and taking photos we would like to come up with a possible idea.

Changed idea

We have changed our idea again back to horror genre as with our story that we created even though it makes a good story line for a film we wouldnt be able to have the locations and the budget to do what we wanted to do with it. With the horror genre even though we dont have an exact story line we are in half term going to look at different locations and film bits with our actors to see what effects we can get. We want to film in abandoned buildings such as hellingly mental hospital becuase it would give our feel a really eery effect and look pretty creepy too.

Colin

Colin is a low budget film which only cost £45 to make. The film is an un converntional zombie film as the film is told through the eyes of the zombie.

Even though this film isnt relevant to our theme now i feel that i can link this to our film that we are going to make. I can do this by looking at the sort of shots that they have used in their trailer, along with the sound and how i can use sound in a simular way but with a romance influenced film. Finally i can look at the locations that are used in Colins trailer and the costume and make up.

story board

Here is a quick story board that i have done for my trailer all the images that i have used are from the internet i've used these images so that i can just show what i am hoping to do. I want to do different sequences throughout the trailer but without giving too much away. I like the start of my trailer i think this is effective becuase you dont actually see any character until the third cell and you see what your not expecting so there is a shock for the audience. the end sequences show the boy trying to quickly change into this man that he has been trying to be, which will try to be comical and unusual.

Audience feedback

In the last lessson i had spoke to the class about my new idea and basically told them about the opening scene rather than the complete trailer.

- They liked it becuase it had familiarities to other films and it's a story line that our age group could relate with.

- They like the humourous side to a romance film rather than it being serious all of the time.

- They liked the style that i might be filming it as ( as a diary entry over a week).

- How my characters were going to be about our age.

- How the storyline was original

- How the story could appeal to different ages and genders.

New idea

In our group we have came up for a new idea for our trailer i brain stormed a few possibilities but we kept comming back to the romance genre, we wanted to do something simular to the notebook as we both really like the film.

I came up with an idea which was very spur of the moment and wrote it down. Our film follows a boy on a social networking website talking to a girl and what we can see from the picture, who is very pretty and she asks the boy 'so what do you look like'? and the boy types back a stereotypical muscly, exotic, foreign man , the type that a woman would jump at the chance of getting then it pans out to a man who is completely the opposite. The story follows the boy over a week and there is a constant timer counting down the days, he is in this week trying to become this man that he said he was to the woman.

Mood board for a romance film.

Here is my mood board based on my new idea for my film, i have pictures of the films the notebook and 500 days of summer as i thought that i could use ideas from the filmm, and subtle techniques that they use for instance in 500 days of summer there is a shot that is just of the two main characters hands and they have created a heart, i thought that for our film we could use this simular technique. I have used words such as 'love' 'romance' and 'humour' to describe the mood of the film to show actually its not just a typical romance film but it can be quite light hearted and funny. The photo at the top of the stereotypical 'geek' shows what could be our main character but we havent fully decided as of yet if he should look like that or not. The computer background i used to show the communication between the two charcters, and this could also show its a modern love story rather than a stereotypical one.

500 Days of Summer

With this trailer i like how it starts of just a conversation which shows that they have simularities with each other; them both liking the smiths and it sets you up for a typical love story. i like the use of old footage as them as children i think i would like to use something simular my film to this, rather than using a total flash back have a grainy, family home movie. This trailer makes you think more and more that they are a couple and the use of imagery is significant too with their hands in the shape of a heart we could use this sort of subtle imagery in our trailer, maybe using the same scene or a variation of the scene. I like the use of a cut scene and a timer counting down the days i could use this in my trailer by counting either the days hes loved this girl or how long it will be until he sees her again.

Changed idea

In our group we have split into two as we werent working well as a 4 and there werent any individual roles and that we could do also there wasnt a lot of commuinication between the group. Me and emma have decided to do a romance styled trailer but an unconventional one.

What our group had done so far.

Our group contains four people me, matt , emma and rathe. Me and emma have done our mood board and decided on ideas, camera angles and lighting for our trailer. We also discussed possible characters that we could use in the trailer and costume.

Matt and Rathe have written out a story board and have written down possible ideas for the story line and a detailed version of the story board.

Barthes codes

In class we have watched various different films that do not follow the typical conventions of todorov's and propps theorys yet follow the thoery of a french theorist Roland Barthes, he dicovered the Hermenutic theory in which the audience is enigmatic where the audience doesnt get the whole story straight away and have to ask themselves questions. The purpose of this is so that the audience builds up tension and it's kept like that until the end when all is revealed.

This is a brief explanation of the code and the code that can be pair with the hermeneutic code called Proairetic code.

The hermeneutic code (her)
- refers to any part of the story that is not explained fully and then becomes a mystery to the audience and the full truth is often not explained.
Snares: deliberately avoiding the truth.
Equivocations: partial or incomplete answers.
Jammings: openly acknowledge that there is no answer to a problem.

The Proairetic Code (ACT)
-also builds tension, referring to any other action or event that shows something else is going to happen, and which gets the audience guessing as to what will happen next.
The Hermeneutic and Proairetic Codes work as a pair to develop the story's tensions and keep the audience interested.

Notes on narrative

www.aber.ac.uk/media

Information isnt just controlled by signs but also being organised into 'Narrative devices' which can be use to control how the information is revealed to the audience and to who and when. One form of narrative device is shifting in time, which includes flashbacks , flashforwards , notions of the present, , repetition of a sequence, dream sequences , hallucinations, premonitions and supernatural projection.

An example of this is a flashback can include signs that will after the meaning of the signs in the present time frame and vise versa. In saving private ryan, which is almost entierly in flashaback revelas the identity of the person whos memories have been viewed , which also reveals a shift in narrative point of view which had until the return to the notional present been concealed.

the second type of narrative device is shifting of the narrative point of view. Most commonly the sharing of knowledge between the main characters and the audience reveals the story information. However there are other methods of information disclosure that rely on gaps of knowledge between different groups or individuals.

We could use this sort of narrative in our film as we are doing it about dremas so that we could use lots of flash backs , flash forwards and the obvious deram sequences that will dominate our trailer.

Technique used in films 'effect'
Flash back
flashforward: The information revealed in one time frame will alter the understanding that the
present audience has of another time frame eg. Saving private ryan and citizen caine.

Repetition: Information can be revealed by increasing the duration of a repeated incident or by changing the narrative point of view of the incident eg Memento.

Dream : Dreams can be used to mislead the audience by making them belive that some events are actually taking place but in reality are only dreams eg. Mullholland drive, Jacobs ladder.

Hallucinations: Again hallucinations can mislead the audience and situates them with the character in terms of thier knowledge eg. a beautiful mind.

Premonitions : premonitions set upm expectations about what is to occur in the narrative, but these expectations can be subverted eg Dont look now/

Voice over : Voice- over discrepancies can create humour or be used to show decit between characters. Further they delimit the terms of narrative disclosure between the characters.

Mood board

Here is the mood board that we did we decided to use a creepy background like with the trees so its dark and creates an unpleasent atmosphere then the horror typography complements that we purposely decided also to use a stereotypical type face. With the title of the film deep sleep we decided to have it centeral so it creates a focal point to the whole of the mood board and the typeography used here and the type face used on it makes it appear to be old and dream like. We put things associated with dreams like the person sleeping and the dream catcher and the music box also we put in a fear with the clown we decided to do that because we wanted to show a fear rather than just gore and horror also people find clowns very frightening and creeepy. We went into the location with the house even though this wont be the house that we will be usuing we wanted to show it on the mood board as it is setting the scene without giving too much away. the knife and the person holding the knife we wanted to show a killer/ killers but not giving it away this is why the face is balcked out also we just have the knife there becuase we want our audience to know that there will be some sort of blood and gore in our film. Finally we have the films that have influenced us to make our trailer we have decided on halloween and nightmare on elm street as they are quite low budget horror films and use simple shots which we could do on virtually no budget.

Todays work

Today me and emma have started to do our mood board we have listed all of the ideas which we would like to have on it for example the style, actors setting etc. We have decided to do the mood board as we both take a level art so we thought that we could do the mood board justice. Matt and rathe are drawing out the draft idea for our story board and making rough notes on camera shots and angles.

We have had an idea for a scene for a trailer we were going to have sort of clincky child like music as if like a child's mobile or a music box then we are going to have the camera in a over head shot looking down on the actor then they are going to wake up and panic then calm down and think everything is ok then hands are going to come down and grab the actor then they are going to let out a horrified scream.

Group ideas and contrubitions

We have discussed in our group previously about doing the genre of a horror/ teen slasher film, in out group we have all had a few ideas how to do this genre of film but we havent become certian as of yet.

One of the ideas was to do a convetional teen slasher film where the setting was in the woodsand the kids get killed off one by one and then the camera jumps to happier times to compare and contrast there good times to the current event that is happening.

The current idea that we have is about teenagers and children having dreams/ nighjtmares that actually come true. We have brain stromed a few ideas about what characters that we want the scenery, props and angles. The camera shots that we were thinking about using were close ups to show the characters fear to whats happening also to mka eit scarier for the audience as you cant see whats going on and can only tell by the victims facial expressions.

THE RING (Trailer 1 / Preview 1)

This trailer shows the main conventions for a horror film it uses dark lighting to create a horrible atmosphere and a feeling that your not quite sure whats going on even though that you are told through the banner (?) which states ' there is a video' so the audience allmost doesnt know what to expect as it leaves them wanting more from it and wants to find our why this video is so important and what makes you die in 7 days. The trailer is made to be even more chilling and frightening by the use of children within it, where the audience have the normal,innocent sterotype of a child watching a video and not realising what it is and having the mother shielding him from it creates tention , shocks and sympathy towards the mother and child. In addition to this you have a different view on children with the child in the video who looks very gothic, and haggared and looks like she hasnt been cared for and almost evil, this creates a sense of discust and terrify the audience as children arent stereotypically suppose to look this way, and it would frighten the audience to see some one so different compared to the other child. The trailer its self looks as if it's done in a video format as it keeps jump cutting between different scenes and there is white noise like a tape and interference between the jump cuts and they speed up to make the audience confused to whats going and having to try and figure out what's the video and whats the 'real life'. I think that the end of this trailer is a way that we wanted to portray our trailer not in the exact waybut in a very simular style. I think that the use of color also is very limitied some scenes looks as if it's had a blue fliter put onto it, i think being selective with the color and making it look very dark creates even more tension. I think the ring trailer would be a good style that we could incorporate into our film trailer with the white noise which we could easily do, the constant jump cuts and creating tension.

Our ideas for a film

We decided to do a big mind map in our group and we looked at most of the genres that we could do for our film trailer then mind mapped them to see what genre we could get the best ideas from. We decided that the whole horror genre and the sub genres that come from horror would be our best idea for a trailer as we could think of lots of sub-genres such as slasher, thriller, zombie ( and sort of monsters).

We thought of doing a trailer in the style of the blair witch project and cloverfield, where it's called the hand held camera technique. We oringinally wanted to do this with zombies but then realised that we wouldn't have the budget for the special effects and make-up. We wanted to carry on this technique but do it as if some teenagers were on holiday and have it as a holiday video jumping to them being attacked, we wanted to not actually show the killer so it gives the audience a sense of confusion to what is actually going on. We wanted to do it on an old camcorder so that you would have a really rubbish quality and the numbers in the corner , then we became to realise that the locations we wanted to shoot it on ( beach, woods) would pick up a lot of white noise and wind and the quality may give us what we think is a good effect but may not have the best intentions for the audience.

We decided to scrap the whole hand held camera idea and film it as it's actually happening for example so they're not over acting as like they are just having a conversation between themselves so the camera isn't actually directly on the actors it would either be an over the shoulder shot or sort of hidden we haven't exactly decided what to do with that yet as it needs further planning.

For the structure of the trailer we wanted to have the beginning very slow paced with them on a holiday having a good time then we wanted it to cut to them into the woods screaming for their lives then its going to keep cutting between the two then speeding up into quicker jump cuts then it goes black into the title of the film. I think this would be very effective because i feel that the audience would have a sense of confusion but the trailer wouldn't actually give too much away.

Ideas for films

we came up in a group ideas of genres for our films such as :

Horror
comedy
romance
biopic
etc.

Then we realised that we would need a lot of money for a lot of them so we looked further into them to realise which ones needed the bigger budget and which ones were more reasonable to do. We need to look for a location that we could use that wouldnt be too repetative and that everyone would use for their film. We havent came up with a story line or characters but we need to look more in depth and dicuss this at this point as its only early days.

theorys in film ( todorovs & propps theory)

L'homme sans tete ( The man without head)

This short film is a french film which follows a man without a head, and has the moral of it's what on the inside that counts.

This short film follows Todorovs theory:

Equilibrium : Is the normality of him living his day to day life without a head.

Disequilibrium: Is him needing/ wanting a head to impress a woman.

New equilibrium : Is him realising that he doesnt need a head.

Todorov's theory is used in most childrens films for example in disney films becuase it's a simplistic way of creating a story with the structure of having a equilibrium, dis equilibrium and new euqilibrium it shows a structure that children are used two also it shows children the moral that every cloud has a silver lining and that everything will be fine in the end what parents want also to apply to their childrens life.

Finding nemo: A clown fish named Marlin living in the Great Barrier Reef loses his son, Nemo, after he ventures into the open sea, despite his father's constant warnings about many of the ocean's dangers. Nemo is abducted by a boat and netted up and sent to a dentist's office in Sydney. So, while Marlin ventures off to try to retrieve Nemo, Marlin meets a fish named Dory, a blue tang suffering from short-term memory loss. The companions travel a great distance, encountering various dangerous sea creatures such as sharks, anglerfish and jellyfish, in order to rescue Nemo from the dentist's office, which is situated by Sydney Harbor. While the two are doing this, Nemo and the other sea animals in the dentist's fish tank plot a way to return to Sydney Harbor to live their lives free again.

With finding nemo there are a few of each theory within them:

Equilibrium: 1.Is when Marlin and Coral are searching for a home together and find one then move their children into it.
2. When Marlin and dory are searching for nemo and getting on and it seems normal for them.
3. When nemo is put into the tank and he is put into the brotherhood.



Disequilibrium : 1. When Coral and Marlins family are killed except for nemo.
2. When nemo is taken by the diver.
3. When Dory and Marlin get in trouble with the Sharks, and jellyfish on their travells.
4. When Nemo discovers that he is going to be given to Darla as a birthday present and that she is a fish killer.
5. When Marlin finds nemo and thinks he's dead.

New equilibrium:

1. Marlin realising that Nemo was the only one that had survived and looks after him.
2. When nemo is in the tank and makes new friends
3. When Marlin and Dory meet the turtles.
4. When Marlin and Nemo are re-united
5. When everyone is back together at home and there are new friends and old and everythings normal again.

Peter pan : A story that follows the darling children and their adventure to never land with peter pan a boy who never wants to grow up.

Equilibrium :

1. When the children follow normal day to day life in the nursery.
2. When they follow a normal life when in nerverland with their new family the lost boys.

Dis equilibrium:

1. When Wendy is told to grow up and results in them leaving
2. When Wendy is shot down by the lost boys
3. When you see Captian Hook has taken tiger lilly
4. The mirmaids attack Wendy
5. When peter pan gets bombed and tinkerbell dies

New equilibrium:

1. The children are introduced to peter pan and neverland as a chance to escape growing up.
2. When the children are excepted into the lost boys family
3. When they are accepted into the indian tribe
4. When good triumphs over evil when captian hook gets killed by the crocodile
5. When the children return to the nursery and normality is returned.

Propps theory

Propps theory is used throughout films when characters are allocated different roles these are used greatly in disney films also.

The lion king :

The hero : Simba the main protagonist that we follow the life of throughout the film.

The villan : Scar, Simba's uncle who has it out for simba and wants to take his crown and kill him.

The helper : Is split between two characters Timone and pumba who help him grow up and look after him.

The princess: Nala ,Simba's childhood friend and love interest when he's older.

The doner / father : Are both Simba's father mufasa as in result of his death sets of a chain reaction of things. Also rafiki the money who is magical and realises who simba is as he's older and sends him off to his family.

The dispatcher: Zazu the bird who informs Simba .

Narrative in film

Todorovs theory - He suggested that there is in film and equilibrium , where everything is normal. Dis- equilibrium when something has changed, gone wrong or is not right. New equilibrium when when a sense of normality is returned again.



Propps theory- Looked at hundreds of folk tales which appear in films, he identified :

1. The villian ( struggles against the hero)
2. The donor ( prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
3. The helper ( helps the hero in the quest)
4. The princess ( person the hero marries , fought for during the narrative)
5. Her father
6. The dispatcher ( The character who sends the hero off)

Narratives use many various techniques to show changes of time these include:
Elipsis
Parrellel narrative
Flash back / flash forwards
7. The hero or victim/seeker hero, reacts to the hero , weds the princess.

There are also alternative film structures this includes:
Exposition
Development
Complication
Climax
Resolution

Advanced portfolio task

to produce a promotional package for a film. To include a teaser trailer , a magazine front cover and poster. The work must be presented on a blog format and edited to individual taste.